Plastic bags having draw strings, e.g. as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,013,597 and 4,558,463, provide a great advantage in closing and securing bags, especially trash bags as compared to bags requiring other types of closure, e.g. string or twist ties. However, except when such bags are supported, e.g. in a rigid container, it is often difficult to fill such bags especially with noncompliant articles such as leaves or kitchen scraps. In such cases it is often advantageous to collect such leaves or scraps on a flat sheet, gather the edges of the sheet to contain the fill, and dump the fill or the sheet with the fill into a trash bag. An object of this invention is to provide a flat sheet that is especially useful not only in the collection of articles, e.g. trash, but which can also secure such articles as in a sack without the need for redundant containerization.
Attempts to provide gatherable sheets which have been proposed for a variety of purposes do not advantageously meet the objects of this invention. For instance, circular sheets which are gatherable into sacks are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,475,767 which provides a sanitary disposable receiver, e.g. for liquid wastes such as body fluids, and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,812 whch provides a combined picnic basket/table cloth. Although such circular sheets having drawstrings in their peripheral hems are readily gatherable into sacks, it is difficult to produce such sheets from inexpensive polymeric materials, such as polyolefins. Rectangular sheets having cords in their hems have been provided for a variety of uses, e.g. as sails, clothing, tarpaulins etc.; see, for instance U.S. Pat. No. 4,590,715. Because of the stress typically applied to the hems in such uses, such sheets have generally been fabricated from materials of substantial durability and toughness and consequently are not usually inexpensive or considered expendable.
It has been discovered that flat sheets adapted to be gathered into sacks by drawstrings within hems can be provided from thermoplastic film by a process that is readily adapted to automatic sheet handling methods and apparatus, thus affording the commercial feasibility for disposable containers which is lacking in devices of the prior art.